Growing up in the 1960's we didn't have a lot of money, but we had each other. We spent countless hours making home created gifts to gift family and friends. Hot cocoa, special family favorite Christmas cookies, fruit cake, and gifts that we uniquely made ourselves from things we had available at the house or on grandma and grandpa's farm (roasted nuts, cider we had pressed in the fall, etc).My mom made a hot chocolate recipe that was in her AORN Nursing Cook Book that she had me help compile and type the submitted recipes from all the nurses in her AORN group to create this fundraiser cookbook filled with delicious recipes (the typewriter at that time was manual - oh the memories!). The original recipe here has been adapted. This recipe was the family favorite and included Nestle Quik instead of Hershey's Chocolate and has been a solid favorite every winter for our family and friends alike. Holiday Hot Cocoa Mix 2 Cups Nestle Quik 1 [...]

Most mornings we wake up with anticipation and take for granted the day, even before it begins. We know that we will wake up, grab a cup of coffee and start our usual morning routine. Nothing exciting or new, just getting up and moving about towards our plans for the day. Every morning we know that things can change throughout our day, however we don't give much thought to those things that could get in the way of our plans. After all, how would you know what those things could be? They are your day's variables. Variables are the devil's way to catch us off guard and give us fits! Today was such a day for me. One minute I am going about my business and the next, I have a headache, sinus issues are gaining ground on me and things at work are going crazy rapidly. By the end of the day, I have just about taken in as much of the variables that I am [...]